the more ready to run to the greatest length, because he
entertains no desire to better his own state. Marzio's real weakness lay
in the limited scope of his views, and in a certain timid prudence which
destroyed his power of initiative. He was an economical man, who
distrusted the future; and though such a disposition produces a good
effect in causing a man to save money against the day of misfortune, it
is incompatible with the career of the true enthusiast, who must be
ready to risk everything at any moment. The man who would move other
men, and begin great changes, must have an enormous belief in himself,
an unbounded confidence in his cause, and a large faith in the future,
amounting to the absolute scorn of consequence.

These greater qualities Marzio did not possess, and through lack of them
the stupendous results of which he was fond of talking had diminished to
a series of domestic quarrels, in which he was not always victorious.
His hatred of the church was practically reduced to the detestation of
his brother, and to an unreasoning jealousy of his brother's influence
in his home. His horror of social distinctions, which speculated freely
upon the destruction of the monarchy, amounted in practice to nothing
more offensive than a somewhat studious rudeness towards the few
strangers of high position who from time to time visited the workshop in
the Via dei Falegnami. In the back room of his inn, Marzio could find
loud and cutting words in which to denounce the Government, the
monarchy, the church, and the superiority of the aristocracy. In real
fact, Marzio took off his hat when he met the king in the street, paid
his taxes with a laudable regularity, and increased the small fortune he
had saved by selling sacred vessels to the priests against whom he
inveighed. Instead of burning the Vatican and hanging the College of
Cardinals to the pillars of the Colonnade, Marzio Pandolfi felt a very
unpleasant sense of constraint in the presence of the only priest with
whom he ever conversed, his brother Paolo. When, on very rare occasions,
he broke out into angry invective, and ventured to heap abuse upon the
calm individual who excited his wrath, he soon experienced the
counter-shock in the shape of a strong conviction that he had injured
his position rather than bettered it, and the melancholy conclusion
forced itself upon him that by abusing Paolo he himself lost influence
in his own house, and not unfrequently called f